Technical Abstract:
In response to successive years of high honey bee mortality, the United States Congress mandated the U.S. Department of Agriculture to increase funding for research and education directed at reducing honey bee decline. The funding followed two administrative streams within USDA – one through the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and another through the USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA). ARS is funding an Areawide Project operated by the four ARS honey bee labs, and NIFA is funding through a competitive grant process a Coordinated Agricultural Project (CAP) operated mostly by scientists and educators at state colleges of agriculture. Each project – Areawide and CAP – is characterized as a consortium of investigators working in a coordinated manner to reduce institutional redundancy and optimize the discovery and delivery of sustainable bee management practices to client beekeepers.